Breeding lilacs out of the dead land
by ellowyntinuviel
Summary: "And I will show you something different from either your shadow at morning striding behind you or your shadow at evening rising to meet you." A post-apocalyptic AU.
1. Chapter 1

**Notes: **I owe an endless amount of thanks to Sonja for helping throughout every stage of this story. The title and summary are taken from T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land."

I hope that everyone enjoys this. Feedback is always appreciated.

**Rating: **NC-17 for sex and violence**  
Warnings:** This story features violence and blood. Rape and cannibalism are mentioned but not depicted.

_Breeding lilacs out of the dead land_

Brittany was the first to go, eternally optimistic Brittany. She held on to her hope and her love of humanity right up to the end, when an untreated infection left her too weak and compromised to understand what was happening in the world around her. She had cut her leg on what was left of a car they found, a few rusting pieces of jagged metal and a steering wheel. The rest had been likely stolen long ago. They had no supplies to treat her with — bandages and disinfectant, like so many other things, were hard to find. The infection had been enough to take her. Santana stayed with her until long after she had taken her last breath, pushing the hair off her face and placing a kiss on her forehead before leaving her body there.

Quinn was next, killed by one of the members of a gang that had attacked them in the middle of the night. The man was wild and unshaven, with thick arms and a deep voice that rang out clearly in the silence of the forest they were in. He grabbed Quinn by the hair and swung her against a tree headfirst. She went limp as a ragdoll, blood gushing from her nose, but he didn't stop. He slammed her head against the tree again and Santana heard the sound of bones cracking and breaking. He repeated the action so many times that Quinn's face was unrecognizable by the time he dropped her body to the ground. Santana didn't stay to find out what he did to Quinn after that; she didn't want to know.

Kurt was the last one to leave her, taken by the sickness that had been taking them all since they woke up at the end of the world. Kurt grew weaker every day until he finally collapsed just outside of yet another empty and forgotten town. It took all of Santana's strength to drag him into the first house she saw and hoist him onto the busted sofa. She covered him with a blanket as he lay sweating, his legs twitching and his eyes heavy. Kurt told her to leave him, but she stayed until Kurt stopped breathing and his hand went limp in her grasp.

And then she was alone.

Well, almost. She knew that she wasn't the last person on earth; there were others, of course. But so many of them seemed to be monsters, the leftover boogeymen of childhood nightmares long past. There were ever-present groups that she knew would just as soon eat her alive as they would rape her. She had run into them more times than she could count. And they were like her, she knew, looking for food that had already been taken and supplies that didn't exist anymore, and dying the same slow diseased death that was taking her, too.

* * *

Santana pushed open the front door of another house that was missing its owners and sighed. Another empty house in another town. She started to pick through the debris that littered the foyer, figuring that she wouldn't find anything but willing to try anyway. She kicked at a few pieces of melted plastic and heard the clattering of metal in response. She paused and waited. The noise came again, the sound of pots and pans banging reaching her ears.

She pulled the long knife from her belt, holding it in front of her as she slid silently along the wall towards the kitchen door. She likely had the advantage, as knives were next to impossible to find. She was lucky to stumble across it when she had and it had served her well up to this point. She had lost people along the way but _she_ was still living.

Unfortunately, she was wrong. As she moved to peer into the kitchen, Santana found herself staring down the barrel of a gun, a semi-automatic pistol no less. It was a rarer and more deadly prize than her knife. At the other end of the barrel stood a small girl who didn't look much older than Santana, if she was at all. She was thin and dirty, her tattered clothes covered in dirt and mud, and her long hair was a tangled mess that she had pulled back into a ponytail and tied with a bit of string. She glared at Santana.

"Get out," she said coldly.

Santana regarded her calmly. The girl had a gun but she looked no better off than Santana, which probably meant that she hadn't been using it on anyone. If that were the case, she probably wasn't going to use it on Santana, either. Who knew? Maybe Santana could take this girl with her. A gun would be a good weapon to have nearby, if only to scare off the scavengers who might pick their teeth with Santana's bones.

She looked around quickly. The girl didn't appear to have a backpack, no visible supplies. Nothing but a gun. If she played her cards right, Santana could walk out of here with a new companion _and_ a good weapon.

Santana made a big show of putting her knife back into her belt — she could pull it out quick enough if she needed to — and raising her empty hands, palms facing the other girl. "Relax," she said slowly. "I'm not a threat to you."

The girl made a similarly big show of pulling back the pistol's hammer until it was cocked. "I know."

Santana pressed on unperturbed. "Listen, I've got food. You've got a gun. We can make a deal here."

"Or I could kill you and take your food."

Santana bit back the urge to roll her eyes. "Yeah, you could," she agreed. "But you'd be killing one of the only people left who's not a psycho or a cannibal. Or both," she said. "We can work together, help each other out or whatever. It'll be like we're part of humanity again."

It sounded stupidly cliche to her ears, but when the girl said nothing, Santana knew she had her. Stretched her hand out. "I'm Santana," she said.

After a long moment, the girl finally lowered her gun, slipping the hammer back into its resting position and flicking the safety switch. "Rachel," she responded, taking Santana's hand in hers and shaking it weakly.

* * *

They ended up sitting next to one another on the floor of the living room, shoulder-to-shoulder, their backs against the wall behind them. Rachel pulled her legs up to her chest, bending them at the knees and wrapping her arms around them.

Santana's legs lay straight out in front of her, pushing aside debris — paper and the occasional broken knick-knack, the lost treasures of someone likely long dead. She crossed her legs at the ankle and grabbed her backpack, unzipping it and digging around inside of it for a few moments, pushing around her own treasures. Santana could feel Rachel's eyes on her, watching her intently, the pistol sitting on the floor next to her bent legs. It was close enough that Rachel could easily grab it if she was so inclined and they both knew it.

Eventually Santana pulled out a partially dented can of fruit and a can opener that had seen much better days. The manual crank was so rusted that it barely turned and the gears rattled uncomfortably with every turn, but the blade was clean and the opener still did its job. She opened the can and flung the lid off to the side, letting it join the rest of the trash in the house. Santana then passed the open can to Rachel, who took it eagerly and regarded Santana with gratitude, a small smile on her face.

Rachel made a move to grab at the peaches in the can with her bony fingers, but Santana stopped her. "Hold up," she said. "We're not fucking animals. I have a spoon somewhere," she told Rachel, opening one of the small pockets on the front of her backpack. The zipper on the smallest pocket had come off and she held it together with several pieces of string strung through a series of holes she'd cut through the fabric. It worked like a drawstring and had been one of the first things she'd repaired on her own; it was simple but she was still proud of her work, so much so that she put her few prized possessions in that pocket just so she could remember her achievement.

"Got it," she said finally, producing her only spoon and handing it to Rachel.

Rachel took it gently, reverently, and dipped it into the can of peaches. "I haven't seen in a spoon in a long time."

Santana nodded. "Yeah, I know," she replied. "I haven't seen one in at least a year. So don't even think of stealing that one or I _will_ hunt you down," she added.

"And what?" Rachel asked through a mouth full of peaches, a little of the sweet syrup running down her chin. "Get shot to death over a spoon?"

Santana narrowed her eyes at Rachel, reaching out with her hand open until Rachel passed her the can and the spoon. "Do you even know how to use that thing?"

Rachel looked impossibly small sitting next to her, her clothes a few sizes to big for her, either because they'd been found that big or because Rachel hadn't been getting enough to eat. Santana knew that she didn't look much better. "You just pull the trigger," Rachel said quietly. "That's all it takes."

Santana had nothing to say to that so she didn't bother to say anything, letting the silence sit with them instead. She scooped a peach out of the can she was holding and ate it, chewing slowly. It was the last can of peaches she had and she wanted to enjoy it. She took another peach into her mouth and passed the can back to Rachel before picking up the worn plastic jug sitting next to her stretched out leg.

The jug had once held a gallon of milk but now it held less than a half gallon of water collected from a stream somewhere a few dozen miles back. The label was peeling off — it was always one corner away from falling off completely — and Santana pushed it back into place as she always did. She screwed the top off and took just a few sips. The water tasted good and clean, even though it wasn't, and her body ached for more, always just a little bit more, but she stopped herself after only a couple of sips. Her body protested but she did her best to ignore it; she didn't know when she'd find drinkable water again.

"How long have you been here?" Santana asked after a while. In the beginning, it had been common to ask where people were from, but there weren't many places left with proper names that people knew so Santana always asked how long they had been wherever she met them. Usually it was no more than a few days. Brittany had been the longest in the little city where Santana met her and she had only been there for a couple of weeks.

"I've always been here," Rachel said simply. "My family has lived here since I was a little girl."

"Here? Here in this house?"

Rachel shook her head. "Not in this house. Our house is gone. But I grew up in this town."

"Jesus," Santana muttered. Rachel was probably going to be like Quinn, imprisoned in some dark basement for years, taken out every so often to be used and abused by her captors. Quinn had only told her what it was like once, when they were a little drunk on a half-bottle of wine they'd found in a dead man's duffel bag. Quinn said that the threat of being kept alive was worse than the threat of death. Death meant that there was end; the living could go on forever.

Santana thought of asking what they did to Rachel, whoever kept her in this town, but decided that she didn't want to know. It was always easier to ignore the ghosts that haunted the steps of those she walked with. She didn't ask and Rachel didn't answer and that was okay because it meant that Rachel didn't ask about _her_ ghosts either.

Rachel passed her the can again, half a peach still left inside it, and Santana finished it off, tossing it somewhere across the living room. She licked the spoon a few times, cleaning the sticky peach syrup off with her tongue, and then wiped it off with the tattered remains of a hand towel she'd been carrying for months. Santana handed her water jug to Rachel, who took a few sips. Her lips were cracked and she let a bit of water slip over them.

"So listen," Santana said, adopting an air of not caring. "I've shared my food and water with you, let you use my spoon. We're practically related now. You gonna come with or not?"

Rachel didn't say anything at first, just slid her hands down her legs, rubbing the worn fabric of the sweatpants she wore. "Okay," she said finally. "But it's starting to get dark outside and I don't —" she paused.

"I don't travel at night," Santana told her, leaning forward to look out the busted window at the front of the house. "Too much shit happens when it gets dark," she said. "Are there any, you know, bodies in this house?" she asked.

Rachel shook her head.

Santana stood, stretching out her limbs. They protested against every move that she made. Santana shouldered her backpack and grabbed her water before holding out a hand to Rachel, who took it gingerly. She hoisted Rachel up to her feet. "Then lets find some beds to sleep in."

Rachel reached down to grab her gun, slipping it into her pocket, and nodded. She followed Santana upstairs silently.

All of the beds in the house had been stripped of their mattresses, which was no big surprise, but one of them had a box spring still in place in the bed frame. Santana dug a blanket out of her bag. "I've only got one," she said. "But I'll share."

Rachel nodded. "That's fine," she replied, tugging on the wooden chair she took from a different bedroom and wedging it under the doorknob. "It won't stop anyone who _really _wants to get in, but it should give us enough time to escape."

"Or kick their asses," Santana suggested. She waited for Rachel to lie on the bed and then joined her, lowering her blanket over both of them. It was thin and the ends were fraying but it was better than nothing. They had no pillows.

Rachel pulled out her pistol and set it on the broken nightstand next to her. Santana fingered the handle of the knife in her belt before pulling it out and setting it on the floor. They were low enough to the ground that she could roll over and grab it easily enough.

The sun dipped below the horizon, a few lazy streaks of orange and pink painting the sky outside the broken window before slowly disappearing. Eventually they did disappear, taking their only source of light and shrouding Santana and Rachel in darkness.

She could see nothing but she could feel Rachel's leg resting against hers and she could hear the soft sounds of Rachel inhaling and exhaling slowly. She waited for Rachel's breathing to even out, indicating that she was asleep, but it never did. And so Santana didn't sleep either. She waited for a gunshot to the head or a hand slipping into hers, but neither came.

* * *

The next morning, they found Rachel a backpack in a neighboring house, a pink monstrosity that Santana hated. She'd looked desperately for something a little more inconspicuous but nothing had turned up and she'd been forced to let Rachel use it; not that they really had much of a choice, for Rachel seemed strangely attached to the pinkness of it and they needed the extra space for the few cans of food and spare blanket they'd managed to find. It wasn't much, the haul they collected, but it was more than what Santana usually found in the deserted towns she came across. And it was infinitely better than what she found in the non-deserted towns and homes she stumbled upon. She shuddered.

"What is it?"

Santana blinked and looked at Rachel, who was walking beside her. They were following what had once been a highway, two lanes on either side of a grassy median, deserted but for the occasional leftover car or SUV. They stuck to the trees and thick overgrowth next to the road; it was slow going but it was safer than being out in the open.

"What's what?" Santana asked. She absentmindedly switched her gallon jug from one hand to the other. The water inside it sloshed pitifully.

"You shivered for a second," Rachel said, thin fingers holding on the pink straps of her backpack. "Almost like a convulsion. Is — is it a symptom, do you think?"

"Can be. Depends on the person," Santana answered. "Have you really never been outside of that town?"

Rachel's fingers twitched and she blinked as a harsh beam of sunlight broke through the stand of bushes they were wading through. "It's true. I —" she paused for a moment. "I was always with my dad. We moved around the town a lot and sometimes he went out, scouting for supplies, but I always stayed behind. He said it was safer that way."

Santana waited for her to continue, but after a few minutes, it became apparent that Rachel wasn't going to say any more. At least she hadn't been locked in some dank cellar somewhere, only pulled out in the light for things better left unseen and unsaid. "What happened to him?" she eventually asked, waiting for any number of the likely answers to her question.

"He went out one day," Rachel said calmly. "And he never came back."

"Do you think he will?"

"No."

They walked in silence for a while, the world quiet but for the sound of their shoes hitting the dirt as they walked. The silence had once been unsettling, unnatural for a place so used to the noise of people and cars and airplanes, loudspeakers in grocery stores and police car sirens, but the silence was now safer than the alternative. Noise usually meant that someone was coming and that was very rarely a good thing.

Rachel was the first to speak again. She glanced behind them, looking at the road stretched out behind them, and then looked ahead at the road stretched out in front of them. The way ahead didn't look very different from the way behind. "Where are we going?"

Santana shrugged and made a vague gesture in front of her. "That way," she said.

"Is there anything that way?"

A fallen tree lay in front of them and Santana threw one leg over it and then the other, pausing on the other side to sit down. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, tired and annoyed. They had only been walking for a couple of hours and already she could feel exhaustion creeping up on her. "I don't know," she said. "Probably not. But I came from the other way and I'm not going back."

Rachel followed her over the tree, sliding a bit further down until she was sitting on the ground in front of the log, one bony shoulder poking the side of Santana's leg. "I didn't leave because my dad told me not to," she said quietly, responding to an assertion that Santana hadn't made. "I stayed because I was afraid, afraid of what I might find out here."

Santana pulled herself up. "How long has it been since the first outbreak? Eight — nine years?" she wondered. "It's worse than you imagined."

Rachel followed her, standing up slowly. She looked impossibly small standing amid the trees and bushes they were in, dwarfed by the over-sized clothes she wore and the dirty pink backpack on her back. "So far I've only come across trees and road. And you."

"Just wait," Santana replied. "It always gets worse than you think it will."

"Maybe it won't."

"It will."

* * *

It didn't get worse, not at first, not while there was still food to be eaten and the weather was still warm enough that they could roll the bottoms of their pants up and feel the breeze on their bare calves. They talked little, to save energy and themselves, for Santana was always worried that they would accidentally draw attention and get killed, especially when Rachel insisted on humming songs and tunes that the rest of the world had forgotten. They fought sometimes too. Santana would threaten to leave Rachel and Rachel would threaten to shoot Santana, but they always ended up under the same set of blankets at night, huddled together to fight off the nightly chill, and that's what counted.

The days blended together, each one full of bushes and trees and the occasional broken town off the highway, empty and broken gas stations and fast food places leading to more empty and forgotten houses; sometimes, a few cans of food that weren't _too_ far past their expiration date, and maybe a bit of rope, which was rarely used but kept, like most things, just in case_._

"I always wanted to be a singer when I grew up," Rachel said one day, kneeling next to Santana at a small stream. The water was dirty, clouded with bacteria and probably chemicals, but the plastic gallon jug they shared was empty and even a dirty something was better than nothing.

Santana was holding the jug in the water, letting it fill. She grimaced at the sight of it, wondering if there was enough diluted gas left in her lighter to start a fire. They would need to boil this water before they could drink it, only for a couple of minutes, but a fire was risky, even one that burned for a short time. She looked up at Rachel across the water. "What kind of music?"

Rachel smiled. "All kinds of music. I used to love to sing," she gushed. Her face was flush from either the excitement or the heat, or maybe both. "I was particularly adept at performing songs from Broadway musicals. My father entered me in singing competitions at a very early age and I always won."

Santana rolled her eyes and capped the gallon jug, cloudy water swishing against the sides. "Broadway? Of course."

Rachel nodded. "I was very talented. If one were so inclined, one could probably say that I'm still very talented, despite the fact that my companion continually silences me."

They rose at the same time and Santana held a hand out, balancing Rachel as she stepped over the slowly meandering stream of water. "If I didn't shut you up, you'd have everything out here on us, and I don't know about you, but I really don't want to give the crazies and rabid animals a free show before they kill us."

Rachel brushed against her when she reached her side of the stream and gave her hand a squeeze before she let go. "Perhaps they would be so moved by my performance that they would drop their arms and vow to protect me," she said with a flourish.

"But not your companion?" Santana asked, smiling a bit despite herself.

"Only if my companion sings with me," Rachel grinned.

"Yeah, okay," Santana said. "If we run into any Broadway-loving wild men, we'll try it."

Rachel clapped her hands together, the noise too loud for Santana's ears. "Excellent. We'll have to start rehearsing immediately."

"That's so not going to happen," Santana muttered. She waited a beat, then added, "I'm so awesome that I don't need rehearsal."

This time it was Rachel who rolled her eyes, still smiling. "What did you want to be when you grew up?"

"A Broadway singer," Santana deadpanned.

"I'm serious."

Santana didn't say anything immediately. She stepped through a patch of weeds quietly, thinking that there were hardly ever proper flowers anymore; there were only weeds. What happened to the flowers? And the clean water? And the people?

"I don't know," she said finally. "But it wasn't this."

Rachel's fingers were soft when they brushed over her wrist, stroking it gently for a moment. "No one wanted this," she replied, "but it's what we got. Let's just — let's just keep going, okay?"

Santana met Rachel's fingers with her own for just a second, enough to feel the warmth of Rachel's skin, sticky with sweat and so very alive. She nodded.

_We'll die soon enough_, she thought.


	2. Chapter 2

"Do you think we'll ever find a safe place, a haven?"

"No. Those are just stories that people used to tell to make themselves feel better."

"There has to be somewhere that's not like this, where there are still regular people living. Maybe they have gardens and grow their own food, live in houses where the windows aren't busted, take care of each other."

"If a place like that existed, the crazies probably already found it, burnt it to the ground and ate the bodies left over when the fire died."

"You don't know that, Santana."

"Yes, I do."

And she did.

* * *

She was fourteen when she lost everything. She was safe, hidden behind the tall walls erected around the part of her hometown that was left inhabited. The walls were mostly wood with some leftover scrap metal filling in the gaps and men walked along them at all hours carrying guns and knives, her father among them.

There was no electricity — the power grid had been down for a couple of years — and no running water but there was a lake nearby and there was still enough gasoline that they were comfortable boiling water almost daily and lighting cooking fires in the front yards of the homes where dozens upon dozens of people had moved in, seeking shelter and food. They mourned the dead every day, those taken from them by the sickness and those who left their encampment and never came back.

And then _they_ came, men and women with wild eyes and angry smiles. They hadn't been as lucky as Santana's family; they had lost everything but their weapons and their hunger. They wanted food so the town gave them some. And then they wanted more weapons and they wanted sex and when the town didn't give them what they wanted, they set it ablaze, one house at a time. When people tried to flee their burning homes, they were met outside by men with guns and thick metal pipes. There were still plenty of guns and bullets to go around.

Santana's mother had stolen her down to the basement, kissing her on the forehead and pushing her through the small cellar window. The air had been black with smoke that fill her lungs and burned her eyes until her vision was blurry with tears. She heard her father shouting somewhere nearby and then the sound of gunshots. When she crouched down to the basement window to help pull her mother out, she found no one.

She ran and when she went back in the morning, there was nothing left of what had once been save the charred and still burning embers of a few homes and the smoldering bodies of the dead.

When she ran this time, Santana didn't look back.

* * *

"It's been nine years," Rachel said one day. "I used to have a calendar and I used it over and over again until the pages fell apart and my pencils ran out of lead."

Santana shrugged, casting a look about the field they were walking through. It was open and flat, a vast expanse of land cut in half by the highway. "Damn," was all she said.

"I know," Rachel murmured gently, her voice soft and calm. She bent her arms at the elbow and ran her hands over the tips of the grass, catching the thin green blades between her fingers. "It's been a long time."

Santana wasn't quite so gentle, wading through the field in annoyance. She kicked at sections of grass, grinding them under her feet. "I was with this girl," she told Rachel, catching her eyes. "We were traveling together. And she always used to say that she wished it could have been zombies or something, because she could have taken that. We could just, you know, kill them all on sight." She frowned. "Shit's way more complicated now."

Rachel nodded. "But then we'd be running away from zombies."

Santana shrugged. "There was this other guy and he —" She stopped, looking into the woods ahead of them, still a ways away. There was light in the trees, a small light close to the ground.

Santana held her arm out in front of Rachel, preventing her from moving forward. She saw it now, movement in the trees. A lot of movement. Without thinking, she grabbed Rachel's hand and crouched down, pulling the other girl down beneath the top of the grass. She gestured towards the road. "We'll cross over really quick," she said. "They haven't seen us yet."

"How do you know they're bad?" Rachel asked. "They could be like us."

The sound of laughter reached them, loud and raucous. The sky was just beginning to darken, the sun dipping towards the horizon, and Santana could see the outline of fire more clearly now.

"The fire and the laughing are pretty big signs," Santana said, rolling her eyes. "Would you just listen to me on this one, okay? The last big group I met in the woods killed my friend, so I'm not really feeling social right now."

"Oh," Rachel replied. "I'm sorry for your loss."

"Whatever. Let's go."

Rachel nodded and followed her through the grass, keeping low to the ground, her hand still clutched in Santana's. They made it to the edge of the grass and then crossed the highway quickly, half-crouched as they crossed four lanes of debris. The other side was all grass and they skirted along the edge, keeping an eye on the far side but seeing no one. They could hear the sounds of people more clearly now, though, foreign and uncomfortable to their ears, which were so used to the quiet.

When they made it to the woods, Santana sighed. And then immediately cursed when they came across a man standing at a tree, his pants halfway down his legs as he urinated. He saw the two of them just as Santana pulled her knife free of her belt and dropped Rachel's hand. He groped for his jeans and got them up with one hand while picking up a large wooden stick with the other. The end was sculpted, like the stick had once been a table leg. It was caked with blood.

Santana watched his eyes dart across the four-lane highway and she knew what was coming. The muscles of his jaw twitched. He was going to call out to the others.

She was on him in an instant, long before any sound could escape his mouth, her knife going straight through his throat. Santana heard the sickening sound of the blade cutting through muscle, the warmth of blood gushing onto her hand and splattering on her clothes.

The man fell, whimpering, one hand swinging his stick pitifully against her hip and the other going to his throat. He hit the ground, writhing and gurgling. It was too loud so Santana did the only thing she could think to do: she stabbed him again as hard as she could several times, this time where his heart was. Her knife ripped through his ribcage, the bones fracturing and breaking under the force of her blow.

His body convulsed and arched up when her blade penetrated his chest. And then he was still.

Santana stood up slowly. His blood carved a wide arc through the air when she yanked her knife out of his body. She bent over and wiped the blade on his ragged shirt. Killing was a messy business.

When she turned back to find Rachel, the other girl was standing absolutely still, her eyes trained on the dead man's body.

"Come on," Santana hissed, holding out her hand. "They're gonna come looking for him."

"You killed him."

"Damn right. Now come on," Santana repeated impatiently. Rachel finally looked at her then, looked at her and straight through her all at once, as if she had never seen Santana properly before that moment, the one where she was standing over a dead body with warm blood on her hands. As if Rachel, the girl with the gun, didn't realize that _this_ was what the world was.

Santana rolled her eyes and dropped her hand, taking off through the trees slowly until Rachel caught up with her and they could set a faster pace.

"It's been nine years," Santana muttered. Rachel should know by now, she thought.

* * *

They jogged continually, slowing down when they grew tired and resting for a few minutes before they took off again. They only slowed down to a walk when the sounds of people had faded so far behind them that there was only silence and the world was quiet again.

Santana pulled her spare bits of towel out at wiped at her bloody hands and arms, still walking. The water in the gallon jug was tucked into her backpack and she could hear it sloshing with each step. It was tempting to pull it out and rise her hands but they needed the water more than she needed to be clean.

"I don't think I've ever seen someone killed like that," Rachel said after a time. "I've seen plenty of dead people, of course, but never someone _killed_ right in front of me." Rachel spoke quietly, watching the ground in front of her.

Santana shrugged. "It was him or us," she said truthfully. "I know you didn't get out much before you teamed up with me, which is really weird and kind of stupid, but this is how it is," she added in defense of a charge that Rachel hadn't leveraged against her.

Rachel looked up at her, stopping and to take the towel from Santana and setting out to clean Santana's hands herself. She scrubbed long and hard until the blood was gone from Santana's hands and they were red and raw. And Santana let her.

"It's just that I've never seen it," Rachel told her, now running the cloth over Santana's skin lightly. "That's all."

She handed Santana the towel and started off again, following the ditch next to the highway.

Santana stuffed the material in her pack and caught up with Rachel quickly, casting a glance over her shoulder at the world behind them, looking for people on the horizon. "We do what we have to do," she said.

"I know."

When they finally stopped for the night, Santana expected Rachel to keep her distance, but she didn't. Rachel put her blanket right next to Santana's, as she always did, and lay beside her quietly in the darkness. They were tucked into a little section of trees away from the road but still close enough that they could hear if anyone might be walking on the pavement.

Eventually, Santana felt Rachel grasp her hands and caress them, perhaps feeling for more blood or perhaps just feeling. Rachel moved against her and after a few moments, she rolled over and put her head against Santana's shoulder, her hands still caressing Santana's fingers and palms softly. Santana's hands were raw and Rachel's touch, though light, still stung. She hissed but Rachel trailed her fingers over Santana's skin anyway. And Santana let her.

"It's okay."

"I know."


	3. Chapter 3

The First Wave had started suddenly, or at least it had felt that way to Santana. It had probably been building for a while, a very long while, but she had ignored so many of the early signs, the news reports and the studies and the government warnings. It didn't really matter, she decided, how it had come to be, only that it had eventually worked its way through the population like a drop of colored dye in water, touching the surface and then spreading throughout until the clear water was a shining red, the color of the blood that ran down the streets. The unidentified illness had taken a few hundred thousand first, dead from the symptoms of the disease that infected everyone. No one could say what it was for sure, only that it was in them all, dormant until suddenly it wasn't anymore.

The Second Wave was even deadlier than the first. Santana remembered the way that neighbors turned on one another in a panic and riots broke out in the streets. People were dying and no one knew why and in their fear, they killed more than they saved. Men and women flocked to their houses of worship, stepping over the bodies of the fallen on their way in, but there were no more answers to be found there than anywhere else. There was only death and the loss of everything that Santana knew.

Santana figured that they had passed on to the Third Wave now, the one made up of whoever was left — people like her and people like the wild men who came in the night to murder and rape and steal. They were all sick, every single one of them infected with the unknown disease that had led them to this life, but they were very different. The wild ones were brutal, rapists and cannibals — Santana had seen it all herself — who turned on even each other when there was nothing left to eat, and there usually wasn't. And Santana — well, she did what she had to do. But even she had limits. She hoped.

They were all going to die soon enough anyway. Why make it worse?

* * *

It could have been days or it could have been weeks later when they ran into the first person they'd seen since the group in the woods. He was walking, just as they were, with a bag slung across his back, his shoes a tattered mess of leather barely held together by a few pieces of rope. He was skinny and covered in dirt, thin black hair falling across his forehead and ears. Santana and Rachel came upon him in the woods near the road and he met them with as much reluctance as they met him.

He held a bent metal pipe in his hand, one end of it rusted. "I don't want any trouble," he said.

Rachel took a step towards him, moving slowly through the grass and brush that separated them. She held her hands up. "We don't want any trouble either."

Santana rolled her eyes, surveying him intently. He would be another mouth to feed, and they didn't need one of those, and Santana and Rachel had a gun and a knife. They didn't need a pipe. "Whatever. Turn around and keep walking and you won't have any trouble, okay?" she told him, pulling her knife out. There was a bit of dried blood still on the blade.

"Santana," Rachel admonished her. She looked at the boy again. "We won't hurt you."

Rachel stuck her arm out but he didn't move. He looked at Santana. "She looks like she might," he said.

"Would you put that away?" Rachel asked Santana, exasperatedly pointing to the knife. "I'm Rachel. This is Santana and she's not nearly as mean as she looks." Her arm was still held out towards him, palm open and welcoming.

He looked at her for a long moment, unsure. Santana stuck her knife back in her belt and crossed her arms, meeting his eyes. She glared at his pipe and eventually he lowered it. "Mike," he said, shaking Rachel's hand. He nodded to Santana.

"What are you doing out here?" Santana asked bluntly.

He shrugged. "The same as you guys." He gave them a small easy smile. "Walking."

"Are you going anywhere in particular?" Rachel elbowed Santana before she could snap at him.

"Not really," he answered. "I'm going south before winter comes. What about you guys?"

"We're just," she paused, "going."

Mike nodded sympathetically. "That's all you can do."

The three of them stood there silently for a moment, Rachel and Santana on one side of a small clearing and Mike on the other, the distance between them incredibly small and incredibly large all at once. "Would you like to come with us?" Rachel asked.

Mike opened his mouth but Santana cut him off. "No fucking way," she scoffed. "Like fucking hell I'm going to let you bring some guy we don't know with us."

"Santana, look at him," Rachel said, turning to face Santana. She waved an arm at Mike. "He looks like he hasn't eaten in a long time. He looks like us." She sighed. "He doesn't look like a horrible monster."

Mike raised his arms and took a step back. "Hey, listen, I'm not trying to —"

"No," said Santana. "Who knows how many times he's done this whole pretending to be a nice guy out in the woods act."

"God, Santana. Why do you think that everyone is out to get you?" Rachel crossed her arms, mirroring Santana's stance.

"Because they are. How many times do you think he's used that pipe on naive little girls like you?"

"You can't just assume —"

"Give me your gun." Santana thrust her hand out, wiggling her fingers at Rachel. "Give it here."

"Santana, I'm not —"

Mike took another step back. A few jars and cans, the only things in his deflated backpack, jiggled and collided. "Shit," he muttered. "I'm totally not trying to mess with you guys." He cleared his throat. "Please don't shoot me."

He looked pitiful. "We're not going to shoot you," Rachel assured him.

"Speak for yourself." Santana glared at her, not even bothering to look at the boy across from them. All she could see were Rachel's eyes, defiant and angry, and her sunken cheeks, pale under the shadow of the trees. "Give me the gun," she repeated. "You want to trust him, fine. But give me the gun so that when he tries to bash our heads in while we sleep I can fucking stop him."

Rachel glared at her for a long moment. Finally, she stuffed her hand in her pocket and pulled out the semi-automatic pistol that she had been carrying since before she met Santana. She held it out and let Santana take it from her before moving to stand next to Mike, who sent her another smile, this one nervous and uneasy.

"Sometimes, you have to trust people," Rachel said to her.

The pistol was heavy in Santana's hand and she swung it around, gaping at Rachel. "Fuck," she cursed, unimpressed. "Seriously? You _actually_ gave me your gun?"

Rachel nodded. "I trust you."

"You're such a fucking idiot sometimes, Rachel," Santana scowled, starting to feel a bit faint. It was warm outside and the air was humid, hot and sticky as it clung to her skin. They were low on food and hadn't eaten in a couple of days. She snapped. "No wonder your dad left you."

She might as well have slapped Rachel across the face. Rachel was obviously stricken, her face contorting as a deep frown settled on her face, her lips trembling. She turned away from them both and made towards the trees that circled around them, gasping for breath as she became to cry. Santana could hear it from where she stood.

Mike didn't understand what Santana meant but he grimaced all the same, setting his backpack and pipe on the ground. He made a move to follow Rachel but Santana beat him, dashing across the thick overgrown grass and raising a hand at him until he stopped and nodded towards where Rachel had gone.

Rachel made an uncomfortable amount of noise traipsing through the bushes, Santana following her. "Rachel, wait," she called out. "I'm sorry." Rachel kept walking, fists tightly balled up at her sides. "I didn't mean it, okay?"

Rachel stopped but didn't turn around.

"I'm sorry," Santana repeated, a but quieter this time. She could still see Mike, standing quietly in the clearing near them, watching.

"It's not stupid of me to trust some people," Rachel said softly, her voice half a whisper that floated lightly on the breeze "It's not stupid to want to believe that there's still some good in this place."

Santana bit back the immediate impulse to shout at her "there isn't" and sighed, moving closer until she was standing next to Rachel. "I kind of trust you, you know," she said. Rachel reached out to take her hand, her grip soft, the way it had been that day in the field when Santana had grabbed her, half covered in the blood of a stranger.

The gun weighed heavily in her other hand and Santana stared at it before holding it out to Rachel. "Here," she said, because she trusted Rachel.

Rachel took the pistol and slid it into her pocket. She wiped at her face, cleaning off dirt and tears with her fingers, and leaned into Santana, who stood by her silently.

It was in that quiet moment, when things had settled, dust and tears and anger, that Santana heard it.

Mike was beside her in an instant, moving so fast that she didn't realize he was next to her until he spoke. "Do you hear that?" he hissed. He held his bent pipe firmly in his hand, his arm stretched out in front of his chest.

Santana nodded. The sound of tires slowly rolling over broken asphalt was so loud, and yet somehow it had snuck up on them. She pulled out her knife. "You're gonna want to take that back out," she told Rachel, glancing down towards the girl's pocket. The road was on the other side of the trees, grass and weeds and bushes rising up high from the ground. Santana couldn't see the road but she knew it was there. She only hoped that whoever was driving didn't spot them through the overgrowth or hadn't heard their fighting.

The tires stopped.

Rachel nodded, grabbing her gun and tightening one of the straps on her backpack. "Do you think we can outrun him?" she whispered, so quiet that Santana only just managed to hear her.

She licked her lips and said nothing.

There were footsteps then, heavy steps moving across the small section of grass that stood between the road and the trees they were in.

Santana turned her head to the left towards the road slowly so that the movement didn't catch the attention of anyone who might be looking. She turned her head, just a little bit, just enough that she could see out of the corner of her eye.

"It's one guy," she muttered. "Tire iron."

"Think we can all take him?" Mike whispered back.

She nodded.

"Him, maybe. But not all four of us." This voice came from the right, breaking through the woods as a man stepped through them, flanked by two others.

_Shit._ They'd snuck up on Santana, Rachel, and Mike, putting one guy on the road and three in the woods, madmen on either side of them. They were so stupid to let this happen.

The three of them stood shoulder-to-shoulder, Santana in between Mike and Rachel, each of them with a weapon ready.

Santana moved first because that's what she always did. She dropped her backpack and sprinted towards the man standing alone, hoping to catch him off-guard. The metal of her knife flashed dangerously in the half-light of the woods.

She flung her knife at his head and he jumped back and hollered, raising his arm. She caught him in the bicep, only managing to nick him. A bit of blood ran down his arm.

He swung his tire iron at her but she managed to dodge it, moving only on adrenaline. He was large but slow and that worked to her advantage. She lunged at him again, her blade managing to cut into his neck this time. It was a shallow wound, not enough to kill him, but it was bloody and just deep enough to make him stumble. He fell back against a tree, pressing his hand against the side of neck.

Santana darted away from him and twisted around to look at the others. She turned around just in time to hear a gunshot, loud in the stillness of the woods, and to see a man fall back to ground, his hand on his leg. Dark red blood stained his pants.

Several feet away, Mike was trading blows with a man twice his size. She recognized him as the one who had spoken. The man was taller and thicker than he was but Mike was fast on his feet, she gave him that. He could definitely hold his own.

Rachel meanwhile was backing away from the last man standing, her gun trained on him. She was strong, her features stern. She had looked at Santana that way once, when she first met her, and Santana did not envy the man on the other end of that glare.

Rachel cocked the hammer on the pistol as he advanced towards her, a large and rusting axe in his hands.

Santana picked up her backpack and began to move towards Rachel. The man she'd cut was still against the tree behind her, cursing, and she paused to turn around and stomp on his groin. He cursed again.

That's when she heard, louder than the groans of pain and the curses of the men in the woods with them - the pull of a trigger and the click of an empty gun. Rachel was out of bullets.

"Shit."

Everything happened quickly then and Santana wasn't sure how she ended up on front of Rachel, but she did. She wasn't even sure she _wanted_ to end up between Rachel and an axe, but she ended up there anyway.

The axe was up in the air and then it wasn't anymore, it was cutting through the air in a downwards arc towards them. Then there was Mike, right in front of them, pushing them back just before the dull blade of the axe hit them.

And then there was the feel of blood everywhere all at once, splattering across Santana's front, and the sound of metal splitting the bone of a skull, and then the sight of Mike's body falling to the ground, a mass of limp limbs and blood. The axe was still buried in his head.

Then there was running, Santana's hand in Rachel's, pulling her away. There was blood and there was running.


	4. Chapter 4

They ran for what felt like hours, until their legs and their lungs burned and Santana thought they might fall down dead from exhaustion or maybe a lack of air. They stopped for only a few moments to rest before moving on, cutting a path through the woods away from the roads. The wild men had a vehicle and though the gas was probably diluted sludge, it was still more than Santana and Rachel had.

Santana could see the blood on her hands and covering her body every time she looked down to step over something, splatters and spots of red drying on to her skin and clothes. With every step, she saw red, _felt_ red.

Eventually, they came out of the woods into a wide open field. They couldn't hear anyone behind them, hadn't since they fled, but they moved on anyway, jogging across what looked to be long abandoned farmland, broad stretches of dirt and grass occasionally broken up by roads, first paved two-lane streets and then paved one-lane streets and then gravel backroads that were full of holes.

They moved on. They moved on until Rachel couldn't take it anymore and she demanded that they stop.

"No," Santana said immediately. They were standing in a field full of waist-high grass next to a stand of trees. Her hands were below the tops of the grass but when she looked down, she could still see Mike's blood on her fingers. When she closed her eyes, Santana could see him in her mind's eye, his easy smile, his calm eyes, his skull split open by an axe.

Rachel reached out and grabbed her hands, rubbing at them with her fingers. "Are you bleeding?"

"No," Santana said again. She went to pull away her bloody hands, but Rachel wouldn't let her. "You were right, okay?" Santana sighed. "You were right."

Rachel dropped her hands and pulled off her backpack, setting it in the grass. She dug around inside and then pulled out their gallon jug of water, popping the top. Water was precious, essential, and they were running low again. They were always running low.

"It's not about being right," Rachel said, standing back up and pulling both of Santana's hands into one of hers. She slowly poured a bit of water on to their joined hands and began rubbing them again, washing away the dirt and blood that clung to Santana's fingers. "It's about trusting others. Not everyone is a villain."

"I know that," Santana replied softly. Rachel's hands were soft, slipping wetly against hers.

"Do you?" Rachel looked up at her pointedly and she was suddenly aware of how close they were.

Santana nodded slowly. The water on their hands dried quickly and then they were just holding hands, Rachel's fingers still stroking her skin. Rachel was as dirty as she was, clothes stained with dirt and a little blood, and her face was pale beneath the dirt, but there was still something very pretty there, something in her soft brown eyes and steady gaze.

"I do," Santana murmured. "But some people are villains."

Rachel nodded. "Not us, though." She spoke slowly. "We're better than that. We have to be."

"Why?" Santana asked before she could stop herself. Rachel was mesmerizing and she couldn't look away.

Rachel's hands slid up to her lower arms and she was suddenly and uncomfortably very close. "For each other," she said, "and for ourselves. Otherwise we'll probably lose our minds and that's unacceptable because I haven't had a chance to rebuild the long lost theater scene."

Santana grinned and without another thought, leaned down and pressed her lips against Rachel's. Because Rachel was hope and optimism and smiles and it stirred something deep inside Santana that she didn't know existed, something warm and comforting, even in the face of death. Rachel had grown on her somewhere in between long daytime walks and longer nighttimes. So Santana kissed her, because she didn't know what else to do.

Rachel kissed her back earnestly, her palms slightly wet against Santana's forearms. Her lips were dry and cracked but eager, insistently meeting every movement of Santana's lips. Santana brought her hands to Rachel's bony hips, slipping her fingers up under Rachel's dirty t-shirt to feel her skin. Santana's hands skimmed up Rachel's sides and she let herself move closer, pressing her body against Rachel's even as she pulled her head back, breathless from running and from the way Rachel kissed her.

"Oh, Santana," Rachel breathed, voice small and soft. "How did you ever get this far?"

Santana licked her lips. "By finding people like you," she replied honestly. "And being a total badass," she added.

Rachel nodded, smiling in acquiescence. "Mm-hmm," she hummed, moving forward to wrap her arms around Santana's neck.

Santana was conscious of the blood that covered both of them, dried on to their clothes, and of the way that Rachel looked at her, trusted her, believed her. She kissed her again and this time she didn't stop, not even when she grew lightheaded from a lack of oxygen.

Rachel was impossibly close and Santana could feel her warmth and the way she eventually began to tremble. They had been on their feet, fighting and running and standing, for too long. Santana dropped to the ground suddenly and pulled Rachel down with her, her legs aching with every move.

Rachel's arms were still around her neck and she didn't loosen them as they landed on the ground. She didn't stop kissing Santana, either, because it felt good and right. And Santana didn't stop either because she had practically forgotten what it meant to feel something besides fear and panic and numbness and everything about kissing Rachel was hope and the promise of a tomorrow that Santana had forgotten could exist.

Santana rolled to the side, her hands still on Rachel's hips guiding her to her back in the grass. She settled between Rachel's legs, her hands on Rachel's outer thighs pulling them apart. Rachel groaned, her fingers combing through Santana's hair, catching in tangles and knots. Santana kissed her again, harder and more insistent. Her body was on fire, burning from the inside out. She wanted to burn. It was all she had left.

Santana slid her hands up Rachel's legs, over her hips and up to her waist, pushing Rachel's dirty shirt up as she went. Her fingers skimmed over Rachel's skin, stopping just below her breasts.

She paused for a moment, breathless and panting with Rachel beneath her. She had done this before but she didn't know if Rachel had and with their luck as it was, they might not get another chance to lose themselves this way.

Rachel, always responding to the things Santana didn't even say, pulled Santana down into another kiss and arched her back, pushing her body against Santana, who sighed at the contact and the way Rachel moved under her. She was practically squirming.

Rachel lifted up, pulling away from Santana long enough to pull her shirt off. She gave Santana a long look, her eyes dark with arousal and her lips swollen from kisses. Rachel then grabbed the hem of Santana's top and pulled the other girl's shirt up over her head.

The midday sun was warm on Santana's back and heat waves rose from the ground and engulfed them. Rachel fell back again, her bare back on the grass, and Santana followed her. When she kissed her again, it was slower, warmer and languid, and she sighed when her bare breasts pressed against Rachel's.

Santana's clean hands found Rachel's breasts and her fingers lightly pinched the other girl's nipples. When Rachel gasped against Santana's lips, she smirked and added more force, one hand palming Rachel's breast and the other still lavishing attention to Rachel's nipple.

They were running from one death towards another and all Santana could feel was skin and heat and desire, building in the pit of her stomach. Rachel was soft and pliant beneath her, so inviting, and Santana wanted her more than anything. She left death for another day and lost herself in Rachel.

Santana slid down a bit, ignoring Rachel's groan of protest, and wrapped her lips around one of Rachel's pert nipples, pink and inviting. She swirled her tongue around the tip and trailed her fingers down Rachel's stomach, stopping above the lose waistband of Rachel's pants. She waited only long enough for Rachel to moan at the way Santana's lips were sucking on her nipple to slip her hand inside Rachel's pants.

Santana's fingers slid slowly and carefully through wetness. "Shit," she muttered around Rachel's nipple. "You're so fucking wet."

Rachel arches her hips off the ground, forcing Santana's hand against her just a bit more. "Kiss me," Rachel says, half-gasping.

Santana smirked again, leaning up to kiss Rachel, her wet tongue dipping between Rachel's parted lips just as she slipped two fingers into her, who shuddered.

They didn't have much time — they've already been in this field for too long — so Santana set a quick pace. Rachel was unbearably wet and every thrust of Santana's fingers inside her was met with heat and slickness and soft urgent moans.

Santana kissed Rachel again, feeling the girl's hands in her hair, keeping their lips pressed together to muffle Rachel's cries. Rachel met Santana's lips as best she could, gasping Santana's name in between fervent kisses, and Santana curled her fingers in response. Rachel's hips met her every thrust and the movement spurs her on, pushing her fingers deeper inside Rachel.

She pressed her thumb against Rachel's clit, drawing circles around it, and fucked Rachel faster. Her wrist burned and her back ached from running and the constant movement of her body against Rachel's.

When Rachel finally came, her muscles clenching around Santana's fingers and her hips stilling, her eyes were closed and her lips were parted. Her face was pink with exertion and her back was arched off the ground. It was the most amazing sight Santana had seen in longer than she could remember.

Rachel wordlessly wrapped her arms around Santana's neck and pulled her down as she lay flat again. Santana pulled her fingers out of Rachel's pants and sunk into the other girl's embrace, burying her face against Rachel's neck.

Rachel's fingers caressed her back, which was slick with sweat. "I think this is it," she whispered.

"What?"

"A safe place for us."

* * *

Eventually the sky began to darken, growing first navy and then black, and they put their shirts back on and left the field behind. The air was calm and the night was still. They said nothing but they walked together, hands clasped between them, unafraid of what might be behind them. There were only more fields ahead of them, fields and a narrow gravel road that led to a two-story house, sheltered on three sides by trees and overgrown bushes. The glass in the windows was all broken but the night air was hot and they were grateful for the breeze that blew into the house, setting up their blankets in what was left of the living room.

Santana heard the sound of rainfall after a time and stood up in the dark. She walked outside, leaving the door open behind her. She walked out into the grass and heard footsteps on the wooden porch behind her, stopping just before the edge.

Rachel called out to her. "Santana? What are you doing?"

Santana stood in the rain, letting it run over the dirt and blood that clung to her, and didn't answer. The water was cool against her skin and she could hear it hitting the roof of the house behind her, pinging off of the shingles and dripping over the sides of the rusted gutters.

And then she coughed, her lungs burning with each spasm. She coughed once, twice, and then turned her face up towards the sky, closing her eyes. The air smelt of fresh rain and her lungs protested each breath that she drew so that she might smell that scent, might memorize and tuck it away in her mind until she needed it to remember why she walked on as she did. Because there was fresh rain.

Rachel stepped off of the porch, standing beside her in the rain. She felt Rachel's fingers slide against hers as Rachel took her hand. Because there was fresh rain and because there was Rachel.

She coughed again. _Let the sickness come,_ she thought, squeezing Rachel's hand. _I'll kick its ass_.

They stood there until the rain had soaked through their clothes and through their skin and through their muscles, seeping down into their bones. They stood together and let the rain cleanse them until they could stand no longer.

And then they walked again.

THE END


End file.
